Probabilistic and Deterministic Treatments for Multiple Flawsin Reactor Pressure Vessel Safety Analysis

摘要

Either of two methods, probabilistic-based or deterministic-based analysis, can be used in estimation of thernconditional probability of flaw growth initiation and failure for reactor vessel having multiple flaws. The probabilisticbasedrnmethod forms the basis for probabilistic fracture mechanism (PFM) calculations, such as the recent pressurizedrnthermal shock (PTS) studies by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the code FAVOR developed byrnthe Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL). In this paper, a simplified comparison is performed to show that deterministicbasedrnmethod used in the PFM analysis of PTS yields the same crack initiation and vessel failure probabilities as thernprobabilistic-based method. This paper discusses these methods and shows that the final results of the two methods arernidentical. Also, it discusses that the underlying bases of the two methods are the same.